Reel Injun

The fatalities at Wounded Knee are described as 300 Sioux. Around 250 Sioux died and about thirty soldiers (many from friendly fire). It was not a deliberate massacre, but the result of a series of mistakes, long and short term, on the part of officers. This is not to minimise what happened. The actions of many of the soldiers would be war crimes today.

Chief Buffalo Child Long Lance's story is tragic, but I have found little evidence his rejection by society was based on racism rather than resentment that he had lied extensively and received a lot of money for his lies. He was, after all, exposed by genuine Indian actors, and the studio to its credit did not publish the findings of the inquiry either for compassionate reasons or to cover up their mistakes. He was the original Pretendian, exposed almost a century before Buffy Sainte-Marie.

We should however, try and understand why a talented black man growing up in segregated North Carolina, who was likely interested in Indian Culture from a young age, and who could pass as Indian, would take an Indian identity which whites would admire more than his true black heritage.

I learned a TON from this film. I started watching it thinking I had a good handle on just how terrible Hollywood has been to the cause of First Nations education, but I was wrong. From the revelation of a SURPRISING number of Hollywood actors who are still alive and have played First Nations peoples in their careers to the surprisingly obvious (how did I not realize this?!) fact that nearly all portrayals of First Nations Peoples on film are of the Plains People - feathered war bonnets and all!

There is truly so much that is positive that I could say about this film, but the most important of which is the fact that it has been funded, produced and released to the wider public at TIFF and various other means (I myself watched it on television, yaay!) and it is largely the work of First Nations artists and community. I hope that funding continues so that further quality works like this can be released!

Truly a revelation!

The history of the depiction of Native Americans in Hollywood films...

What we have is a film that features "white guys" playing Native Americans and the secret identity of Iron Eyes Cody. And for the ladies, we have Native women summed up as Pocahontas. And, of course, all Natives were from the Plains in the movies with feathers and tepees.

What I found disappointing about this film was its lack of references to other films. They did a good job of looking at how Natives really live and there is some humor (the translations) and historical notes of importance (the Marlon Brando incident)... but the clips of films are not a big part of this, and therefore we never fully look at the subject -- Natives in film.

It's important that you understand that this film IS directed by Neil Diamond. However, it is NOT the Neil Diamond that middle-aged ladies love to listen to but just someone with the same name. Do NOT approach the singer and congratulate him on this movie--he'll probably think you are a nut! This film is about the depictions of Native Americans in film and the stereotypes that you'll see in them. The film has some wonderful facts that really are interesting. It also has a really, really good point to make--that too often, they are treated as a monolithic group and not as people. Both the ridiculously noble as well as the crazed, blood-thirsty killer image are one-dimensional and really miss the mark. The film does a GREAT job in pointing this out and featured tones of wonderful interviews and clips of films with positive depictions.

While I heartily recommend the film, I do have one big gripe with it. While it does not destroy the overall message at all, I really disliked how the film unfairly maligned John Ford and John Wayne by making a very broad over-generalization. While there was SOME truth that Wayne popularized killing 'Indians' in film, he and Ford did NOT create this myth of the evil native. In fact, several times Ford and Wayne made films that said the exact opposite. Yet, oddly, the film used one of these wonderfully sympathetic films to try to prove its case--a situation where the film makers either really did NOT see the film or they deliberately misrepresented it. They showed many clips from "The Searchers" and pointed out that Wayne was popularizing the evil Indian myth. This is the exact opposite of the meaning of this film. Wayne plays a man who is crazed--who is obsessed with killing these people. And, he is clearly BAD and the film condemns him for this!!! Also, other examples where Wayne and Ford made the natives real sympathetic people are also ignored in the film--a great example being "Fort Apache"--where Wayne argues with his commanding officer--insisting that the natives be treated with respect and honesty. To me, their anti-Ford/anti-Wayne argument is SOMETIME correct (such as in "Stagecoach") and sometimes not---and is, oddly, a case of stereotyping. Next time, think through your film analysis better--it would have made this a perfect or near-perfect documentary. Instead, it can detract from the film when the viewer is savvy concerning these films.

This native-directed documentary about Hollywood portrayals of First Nations through the years is appealing, good-humored, and watchable, and will be a valuable educational tool. However, it would have been more valuable (and may be yet; this screening was apparently not the final cut) if its various flaws were addressed. There is a sense throughout of the film biting off more than it can chew. The "journey" framing device - in which Diamond heads out on the road to visit various real-life locations of cinematic lore - works case-by-case, but there's no through line and Diamond isn't on screen enough to establish a presence. While one sees the need to address on screen portrayals' relationship to the realities of early colonialism, 70s AIM activism, macho Indian-themed summer camps etc, these byways reduce the space for the central discussion of the movies themselves. Instead things drift toward pat decade-indexed generalizations, so that in the 70s Billy Jack leads directly to Wounded Knee - quite a stretch! While one can readily understand that native viewers don't much like John Ford westerns, presenting the racist cowboy of The Searchers as a direct expression of the filmmakers' attitudes is asking for trouble. And if you're going to show Little Big Man to an elementary school audience to gauge their reaction, then SHOW US the damn reaction! The best talkers of the film are activist John Trudell and comic Charlie Hill, but as insightful as they are, the native stunt man and costume designer do a better service to the movie's themes. (And please spare me the Robbie Robertson star turn!) And in the end everyone lives happily ever after in rose-colored Celluloid Closet style. All that said, though, the film also reveals the existence of a self-portraying Native cinema in the silent era, translates some hilarious Lakota profanity from a vintage western, and highlights the tragedy of the secretly triracial early movie star Buffalo Child Long Lance, among other revelations. Its moments of insight earn it a more than passing grade in spite of its failings.